Annie Dillard The Chase Analysis

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“We didn’t know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This quote by an unknown author gives us a unique vision of memories; it shows that memories are powerful. The most powerful can be made without recognition. The most powerful are made with excitement. Annie Dillard clearly portrays this idea in “The Chase,” a chapter in her autobiography. She tells the story of her rebellious childhood and one of the most heart-pumping events of her life - a redheaded man giving her a chase. With this, she demonstrates the need for excitement, fearlessness, and recklessness in one’s childhood. In order to convey this idea, Dillard not only employs fierce and vivid description, but she impassionedly transitions from spine-chilling tone to thrilling. Dillard utilizes …show more content…

This alarming tone is further supported when Dillard narrates, “Wordless, we split up… He chased [us] around a yellow house and up a backyard path… under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge, down some snowy steps… We smashed through a gap… we ran across Edgerton… He chased us silently… [We] had nowhere to go… we were losing speed… He caught us…” This final use of tone reveals her intention of creating an unnerving atmosphere. She outlines the situation in a manner that will make the readers feel worried and scared for her and her friend’s life. This supports her purpose by describing what “excitement” feels like. The use of tone allows the reader to feel her anxiety and her terror. The audience feels as if her life is in danger, and the use this nerve-racking tone is how we know when we are feeling what she intends for us to feel. It shows us what excitement is

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